Love Don't Last
by s.s.harry
Summary: He smiles at me twisting a lock of hair and says, "You know love doesn't last." "It Doesn't Matter," I whisper, "it really doesnt matter."
1. A Prelude Revised

Story: A Simple Blast to the Past

Story: A Simple Blast to the Past

Author: S.S.Harry

Chapter 1 Gin P.O.V

The tall sandy haired man sweats profusely as he physically wrenches on the frame of the howling portrait. His muscles can be seen straining and bulging as he finally with an almighty groan forces the frame off with a sickening crunch. I cringe at the sound, a sound I'm very familiar with from playing quidditch with my brothers- the sound of bones breaking. The portrait begins to cackle madly as he drops it on the floor and he observes his hand for a minute, letting out a nervous, almost cynical, laugh etched with pain. "Aye Sirius," the sandy haired man says smiling. He holds up the portrait with what I guessed was his good hand and tosses it at a dark haired man sitting in the corner. "For your memories," he says smiling.

Sirius comes from the darkened corner, the shadows covering his face making him look like a ghost. He observes the still screeching painting and my ears are wringing for the 3rd day in a row from the vile wails of hatred. Lifting the portrait slowly, almost tenderly, he tosses it into the fireplace. "SCUM! BLOOD TRAITORS! OUT! AWAY FROM MY HUMBLE HOME! AWAY MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD-" are the last words bellowed from the portrait of Mrs. Black as it shrivels and blackens; a great contrast to the warm merry fire within. As we stare into the flames, a look of silent triumph and determination etches itself across the now aging face of Sirius Black.

Standing at the staircase landing, a bushy haired woman clicks her tongue and scribbles away on a book of heavy parchment. "And there; that's one more task done!" She says cheerily. "Damn it Hermione!" Sirius says, startled, and the sandy haired man returns to reality and begins to swear rather colorfully. I look at his hand and 3 of his four fingers are sticking out at odd angles, one with bone breaking the skin. "Mr. Lupin sir, would you like me to have a look at that?" Hermione inquires; I can feel my skin crawl from the blatant painfulness of the wound. "No need for such a fuss, Hermione," He says smiling, "Observe." He held out broken hand and using the other he began to crack the protruding digits back into place. I shuddered visibly, making him smile more. "Come here girls," he says gesturing at Hermione and I. We walk towards him and he points at the point where the skin had broken to show it healing. "Lycanthropy has its benefits," I remark, eyes wide. "Very much so," Lupin agrees grimly. Sirius, as if dazed, walks towards the now empty space the portrait had occupied.

Paying me no notice, I quietly follow the statuesque figure's gaze. Apparently, the portrait had been protecting a large wooden door. As I look away towards Sirius, I see a look of deep thought, followed by a small smile and then a look of sadness. I make no mind of this behavior, as Sirius often behaves in such a way. Sirius is after all a man of many experiences. Having felt nothing but sadness due to Dementors for over a decade, I'd personally concluded that a man of his experience would embrace all feelings available to him, because for over a decade, he was allowed to feel nothing but sorrow and vengeance. Concluding that musing will not get the house work done, I reach for the doorknob.

"We'll explore that tomorrow, no need to rush," Sirius says quickly, I could feel a sense of dread in his voice, and I lower my hand in disappointedly. This house has many memories for Sirius, and most those memories are bad. "Surely, it would be better to get it done and over with, would it not?" Hermione offers, "If you two are not up to it Ginny and I could-" "Absolutely not," Remus growls, "We're not letting you two down there alone. God only know what would happen!" Sirius nodded in agreement. Hermione scowls at him and continues writing on her parchment. "Fine; tomorrow then," She says sharply.

Since New Years, Sirius Black has not been himself. Several weeks of Sirius showering myself with his never ending cloud of paranoia have driven me mad. I understand that we live in troubled times, the Dark Lord has returned, and now more than ever, we are all working relentlessly to prepare for war; but the level of protection I have rivals that of Harry Potter, my school mate whom the Dark Lord has tried to take the life of many times before. I am not allowed to fly my broom; I cannot even go to the bathroom by myself! Hermione has also suffered; Remus gives her the exact same attitude. Sirius and Remus say that we mustn't separate from other people at any point in time. Consequently, Hermione and I have become very close to avoid having the boys follow us to the lavatory.

In the kitchen, I was situated between Sirius and Hermione; Hermione sat between Remus and I. This had become the norm, Sirius and Remus acted as if they were glued to us, and were making sure that we were glued to one another. As dinner began and everyone began eating the delicious dishes that my mother had prepared for us, my twin brothers, Fred and George, did not find their meals interesting enough. Fred instinctively begins to plaster mashed potatoes on the table and trace his name as well as writing crude phrases and profanities. "Fred Weasley!" Mum scolds him and tosses a well aimed fork in his direction. Fred jumps in surprise causing mashed potatoes hit Harry's spectacles. I look between then uninterestedly as Fred and Harry begin to laugh. Harry continues laughing and spoons creamed corn on his spoon. As I was reach for more candied carrots, Harry flicks the spoon's contents at Fred. The creamed corn lands in my hair, and I imagine the yellow and sickly white oddly contrasts vividly to the bright red shade.

Remus is seen chuckling under his breath. "Oh, so you find that funny?" Hermione says mocking his laughter. Grabbing her glass of chilled lemonade, she poured it on his lap. He begins to jump up and down as ice from it melts ion his pants. "Cold; holy freaking Merlin its cold!" he proclaims jumping and attempting to brush it off of his pants. Sirius barks with laughter watching his childhood friend hop around like he's on fire. Remus takes the first thing he can reach, a bowl of melting butter, and dumps it on Sirius' head. Sirius glowers, taking much pride in caring for his hair.

"Oh be still, this is no way to behave at-" mum begins say before carrots splatter in her face; dad winks at her cheekily holding up his own spoon. Her dumbfounded look then changed into a smile as she joins in the unbranded food fight. The rest of the meal was spent throwing food at one another until our arms were sore from the exercise. As we all rise to retire for the night, mum bellows "Wait a minute Fred Weasley!" Fred freezes with his shoulder sagging slightly. "Since you started tonight's events, you can clean the kitchen, the _muggle way_. Woes betide you if I find the smallest particle of anything left. When you're done you can retire for the night."

Later that night, everyone is sleeping heavily, and I stare out the dirty window at the stars. Restless, I creep from the room. I cannot sleep and I am more than tempted to explore what lies behind that door alone. I grab a candle and light it before opening my door to the outer darkness. Opening the door where the portrait had been, I hold the candle out and see that the door descends a distance which I cannot determine. I walk quietly down the many old stairs using my collar of my pajamas to filter the decrepit air. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I find myself in a circular room full of many shelves. I looked at their contents in awe, but I am afraid to touch anything. Some things were slimy bugs in some preservation potions. At the end of this room, there was another door. Opening it, I find more stairs...

Hermione's P.O.V

Suddenly starting I stare into the darkness of the room. Something doesn't feel right and my heart races and my skin crawls as if a thousand invisible ants were making their way from my mouth through the rest of my body. I decide to see whether Ginny has felt anything. Looking towards her bed, I rub my eyes to make sure I am seeing properly. Empty! I think about running off to look for her, but I know I should wake an adult. I run to Remus' room and rap at the door. As he opens it his he looks confused and half-sleep. "Hermione, it's midnight," he says with a yawn. His look of exhaustion soon changed to a look of anger and he bears down on me. "Why are you up by yourself in the middle of the night, leaving yourself and Ginny open for danger?" he growls.

Remus is always feral at night, and for a minute I feel nothing but fear and excitement. The raw emotion and power coming from the man reminds me of earlier in the day when he completely disregarded the feelings of pain and strain of his muscles while he ripped Mrs. Black's portrait away. "She's gone. I don't know where she went, but I have an idea," I say meekly. Remus suddenly looks worried, for once I begin to appreciate his overly obsessive paranoia towards Ginny and I. He grabs my hand and drags me with him to Sirius' room, the grip on my hand almost breaks my fingers, yet I know he is not trying. Remus knocks on the door several times, but no avail; Sirius doesn't answer. "Sirius, Ginny went in the door by herself." Remus said. Sirius stops pretending to be asleep and jumps, wand ready and runs down the stairs. I begin to question whether worrying them was truly necessary.

We run down the stairs behind the door, the smell of the room combined with my current fear makes me feel sick to my stomach. We find nothing; Ginny is not there. Entering the door at the other end of the room, we head down the next flight of stairs. Ginny is there, skipping across the room as if she has no cares. The two men sigh in relief. 'Hermione help me' said a small voice in my head. It sounded like Ginny's voice. 'Help me. It put a happiness charm on me. If you don't say the counter curse, I'll be stuck this way' it said. "Hey!" I snapped getting the bemused men's attention. They looked at me questioningly. "Do either of you know a counter curse for a happiness charm that is in the act of making a person eternally happy? Because if you don't this is Ginny for better or for worse." I informed them. Remus approaches Ginny and said the counter curse. She looks dazed and then comes to. As she blinks in realization, she returns the looks of the angry faces surrounding her with fear.

Luckily for Ginny, we're all busy gathering their things the next day. Winter holidays are over and we're distracted making sure we don't forget anything important. Ginny and I go to our secret box hidden in a rip in my mattress, and get our most prized possession. It's a photo album that records all of our friends and family. From baby pictures, to how they look at that moment- this is the only book you'd find those pictures in. The book is 1/2 a foot-long and the cover is layered with red and gold velvet. In beautiful silver writing it says 'Ginny and Hermione's sweet memories.' It is my turn to take care of it; I put it gently in my bag and went to breakfast.

Breakfast is uneventful, well as uneventful, or at least as uneventful as possible with Fred and George around. Up against Ronald and the other boys I win a pancake eating contest. I'm shocked I've beaten Ron, the greatest pig in all of Europe. "Mione, you'll destroy your wonderful figure if you continue to eat like this," Ginny warned me as I finished my 20th pancake. I shrug, never having cared about my shape. I'm curvy, not skinny like most girls, and it made clothes shopping horrible. My mother had found a great conditioner that smoothes my hair, which was much longer than I had originally known.

Ginny also is an excellent looking girl. She has long deep red hair and constellations on her cheeks. She is more lanky like Ron, but when her eyes light up and she smiles, it is more beautiful to me than any flying curve ever will be…

GINNY P.O.V.:

"Fred, George, your turn," Mum says as the boys ready themselves to go through the barrier. They walked casually into platform 9-and-three-quarters. "Now you girls," She said. I felt nervous as I clutched a small silver watch I had found in the dungeon the night before. Even in the dark it sparkled beautifully and it is too precious to leave in such a horrid place. Several detection spells later, I found no black magic or traces of evil or hexes on it, so I decided to keep it. Counting to three, we speed through the barrier.

I begin to feel these violent vibrations and I almost lost control of the cart. Instinctively I throw the watch away from me and rush out of the barrier as fast as my legs will let me. Breathing heavily I raise myself to look for Hermione. Behind me I hear a crash and a wail of shock. Recognizing Hermione's voice, I go to help her. The cart had fallen on her leg and I am struggling trying to lift the cart off of her. "Ah, Damsel in distress, I'll help," says a boy with a cheeky grin and long dark hair. "Goor help me get this thing off-" "Oy Moony!" he interrupts. A pale sandy haired boy with gold rimmed glasses appears out of a compartment with an irritated look on his face.. "Help me with this thing," the dark haired one says lazily. The sandy haired one, seeing the dark haired boy make no move to help him, lifts the cart effortlessly, tilting it back onto it's wheels. Grabbing the trunk, I place it in a compartment and the boy leaves. "Hey babe need any help?" the dark haired boy offers. "No thanks," I say looking at him icily. No one calls me babe, and he didn't help the last time. I flip my hair, ignoring him and go to help Hermione to her feet.

She supports herself by leaning on my shoulder; her leg is broken. Hunting for a compartment, we find that all of them were full except for one, where the dark haired boy and his bespectacled friend are sitting. I notice that Harry is sitting with them, but Ron is not. "Mind if we sit in here? Everything else is full," I said. Harry nods and gestures at a seat near him. I notice that Harry seems to not even acknowledge that Hermione is in pain, but exhausted, I sit down with relief. "So what's your name beautiful?" Harry asks. I look at him confused. "What?" I stutter. "Ah, quiet type." The black haired one says winking. "I'll break the ice then, I'm Sirius Black, this stud here hidden behind an evil book is Remus Lupin, this one here is Peter Pettigrew, and last but not least, the cream of the crop, the big man, the leader, the brilliant, watch out ladies guy hates to sleep alone, Jaaaaaaaaaames Pooooooooooter!" hearing this, my vision begins to swim and I faint.


	2. An Adjustment Begins

Chapter 2: Ginny's P

Chapter 2: Ginny's P.O.V.:

I awoke with a dull throbbing headache and the loud noises of the locomotive abruptly seizing my senses. Scanning the compartment, I realize that it is empty, save for Hermione sitting quietly in a corner reading a rather ancient and abused looking tome. I gasp with relief, realizing that the nightmare is over. Everything looks rather the same; the scenic view on the way to school, the fine yet simple design of the compartments, and I find my trunk underneath my seat.

"Oh Hermione, I had the oddest dream," I say cloudily and try to stand up. I am rewarded with a sharp pain in my ankle, quickly assuring me that the nightmare is not over. Hermione looked at me and clicked her tongue. "You shouldn't try to walk on that ankle, you twisted it quite a bit, I'm surprised it is not broken," Hermione commented. I looked down at my ankle, my shoe had been taken off and the flesh of my foot was swollen and red. I groaned, " So it wasn't a nightmare." I say it out loud, allowing it to insulate this plane of existence and thus ground me in this new reality. "Apparently not," Hermione says bluntly.

"And yet it doesn't bother you at all?" I inquire, her calmness is a complete opposite of the fear, adrenaline and confusion I am sorting in my mind. I want to run, scream and shout, band on the platform until it takes me back to my reality, back to where the dead are dead and the old are still old. "Of course it bother me!" Hermione snaps. Her abruptness makes me pause in my thoughts, and her serious expression softens to one of contemplation, "but there is not much I can do about it right now," she concludes assuredly. She flicks her wand at my foot and I feel it twisting painfully back into place. The pain steadily disappears as well as the swelling. "In the meantime," Hermione said distractedly, we'd be best to check our surroundings.

As we stood to take a look around, the train halts and the whistle sounds, declaring that we have reached Hogsmeade. Hermione and I realize that we have not changed, and as we clamber into a horseless carriage we clumsily attempt to pull our robes over our heads. "Woo take it off!" we hear in the distance. Looking across, we see the four boys we had met earlier, James, Remus, Peter, and … Sirius grinning at us and wolf whistling. It is almost impossible for me to register Harry's godfather and our previous professor behaving like gaudy teenage boys. I cannot tell whether Hermione registers such atrocities in her head as she shuts the small shutters of the carriage and continues to change her clothing.

Glad to be out of the normally foul weather of the first day of school, I attempt to plunge headfirst into the crowd of bustling students, only to be grabbed suddenly. I whirl around fist clamped tight, and swing at the offender. With a satisfying crunch I make contact and as I look to see who it was, I see a pale thin boy with greasy hair raising himself off the ground. A small splatter of blood marks the stone steps. "Ha snivellrus got slugged by a girl!" Sirius' taunting voice is heard, but he is not seen. I quietly observe the boy attempting to regain his composure, a shiny prefects badge gleams on his chest, and it appears his new robes are stained with blood. He looks rather caught between rejection, confusion and anger and I am unsure how to go about things. He regains his stance and gives attempts menacing look, which is difficult when there is blood trailing down your face and your hand is clamped tightly over your nose.

"Oh Ginny I'm glad I found you- oh my" Hermione gasps as she looks at the blood stained boy. "What happened?" Hermione pulls out a handkerchief and begins to rub the blood off of the boys face, which is now not only red with external blood, but with blood rising into his cheeks. Hermione convinces him to remove his hand from his nose with small coaxing words, and I notice that the four boys we met earlier are watching, all have sour looks on their faces except for Remus, who observes quietly. Examining his nose, she pulls out her wand and quietly mutters a string of Latin words. Hermione looks at her handiwork and a look of disappointment crosses her face, "It would appear I fixed it crooked..." She says distractedly, and with another flick of her wand, his nose is carefully adjusted to look normal. "There." She says smiling.

We begin to walk away as the boy rubs his nose in wonder. Leaving his short term reverie he calls after us. "Wait!" he yells and almost grabs my robe again, but thinking better of it prefers to tap Hermione's shoulder. "Professor Dumbledore wishes to see you," He says with as much dignity as he can muster. "Follow me." He spins on his heel and quickly stalks away. "That looks eerily familiar." I say to Hermione, who shrugs as we follow his path.

Hermione's P.O.V.:

I am most excited and most interested in our current predicament. Time travel of such great proportions has only been in the dreams of modern and past astrophysicist, metaphysicists, and magical time wielder's alike. I have estimated that we have travelled as far back as perhaps a decade before the births of ourselves and Harry, while most crafters of time turners would win great prizes and merit for managing to travel 10 hours backwards through time. Oddly enough, I would normally think that a travelling of such a large amount of time would have required a much larger disturbance than the meer shaking that we felt as we crossed the travel platform, but then again, it's only an idea.

I am curious however as to how Dumbledore is already aware of our prescence. Part of me suspects that perhaps this was not a twist of fate or chance, and rather a planned set of events, yet I cannot help but disagree. At the same time, I suspect that Remus and Sirius were warned before hand, thus explaining their odd behavior towards us for our last moments in our own time period.

The poor boy I suspect that Ginny attacked leads up awkwardly up the familiar path to the headmaster's office. Looking down towards that great hall, I can tell that it is not, in fact, the end of winter break, but the beginning of a new school year in this time. The firstyear students are soaked and no distinguishing colors clad their black robes, but from this high, I cannot discern any particular faces. Ginny strides behind the small boy, who seems perturbed by her precense, as would anyone apparenty older that were left bleeding uncontrollably on the floor without any sort of explanation.

Stopping at the headmaster office, he mutters the password so that we cannot hear. I find this peculiar, as most often, the headmaster's office password is not considered confidential, however it would appear that this prefect was unaward of such common knowledge. Once in the Headmaster's office, the boy bows deeply, "the arrivals you asked for," he says silkily.

Blue eyes bespectacled Dumberdore smiles at the boy, his eyes seeming to scan the boy quietly. "Very good Severus, very good." The boy revealed as Severus stand straight and haughtily. "you may leave," Dumbledore says, it is not a request, but a softly spoken demand. Severus bows again, "and Mr. Snape," Dumbledore says to the boy and Ginny quietly starts and spins around, staring at the boy as if he were something brown and slimy , "I like what you have done with your nose. Quite a nice change indeed." The boy quickly blushes, grabbing his nose again and running out of the room. As the door snaps quietly, Ginny says a little louder than I would hope was intended, "I should have punched him harder." I give her a scolding look and turn my attention to Dumbledore.

"It would appear, that you two caused quite a disturbance on your arrival here," Dumbledore says gravely. He hands us several newspapers, some in different familiar languages, others written in unrecognizable characters on peculiar mediums, yet all of them had a picture of some separate supernaural occurrence in what I assume are different parts of the world. "thankfully, although many parts of the world are currently suffering from magical blackouts, I am glad to say that I have your records here, so that you may continue your pursuits of magic," Dumbledore says cheerily. I allow this information to register in my mind. Most of the energy for our transfer affected this time realm, not ours, which is why it seemed our disturbance was so small- the vibrations of the time barrier- compared to the disasters occuring here wordwide.

"Apparently, even 20 plus years from now, I still have some tricks up my sleeve," Dumbledore says with a smile, and pulling out two folders, both rather bulky, one containing crisp neat parchment with blue ink, the other many crumpled parchments with angry red letters. Dumbledore leafs through what appear to be our permanent records. The information in my folder is full of blue praise, which appear to be midterm and end of the year reports of my laast 5 years of school, while Ginny's is illegible to me (a privacy spell I am most sure) however the angry purple on Ginny's face is more than enough to let me know what her reports say. "Ms. Weasley, you are quite the hellraiser, and Ms. Granger, you are quite the studious one. Such balances are good," Dumbledore smiles assuredly, " especially when you are in a time that is not your own…"

Snapping our files shut, he peers at us curiously. " I assume you have your belongings?" We nod. "Then to gryffindor to you both! The sorting will begin once we arrive. I shall follow soon after you." He stands to dismiss us and we both leave minds whirring.

Ginny's P.O.V.:

I still cant believe that Dumbledore said it is 20 plus years! My parents eloped at about this time. For all I know, Mother could be pregnant with William about this point in time. It's rather odd that he left us without any sort of warning of discretion with threats of destroying the balance of the universe, would that not be expected in such a situation? Voicing this concern to hermione, she distractedly replies, "Well would you believe such ideas; would you TELL such ideas?" I quietly agree that I probably would not tell someone, nor believe without hard proof.

As we enter the great hall with the last few students who apparently forgot items on the carrieages, the smell of the food and the sleepy glow of the floating candles make my stomache growl in hunger and my senses whir in delight. I scramble to the nearest

available seat at the gryffindor table, banging my fork and causing my plate to rattle and loudly declare "Food!" Several girls look at me with looks of amusement and disgust on their faces. "See? She's with us James," came Sirius voice next to me.

I had not noticed the company with which I was seated. Hermione sat across from me, and Sirius and remus on my right, while james and peter on her left. "Food." Sirius says bangings his fist on the table. "Food." James says conversationally, a grin on his face also slamming his fist. "Food!" Peter says a bit too excitedly and only manages to drop his goblet, quickly ducking under the table to retrieve it. "Food food food!" We all chant in unison causing quite a rythmic vibration upon the table to the point that Hermione scolds us, "Will you stop!" The paused and observed Hermione confusedly.

"Hey! You're the girl that healed Snivellrus!" Sirius says in an accusatory tone glaring at. "And you're the girl that punched him, " James says to me in a sweet voice with a very sly grin. "But regardless, you healed him!" James says as Sirius nods in agreement glowering at Hermione. "Leave her alone, you've had your fun" Remus said quietly. There was a dangerous edge in his voice, I'd almost dare to say it was a growl, yet it was very human, all the same. Hermione looked at him thankfully and the sorting began.

Very soon I was digging in to all the delicious food on the table and left in my own world of flavor. Part of me feels empty as I think of my mother's cooking. I know that they are in the near distant future, but will I ever see them again?


End file.
